The first thing I remember from treatment was a sign that said, "We are not bad people trying to be good. We are sick people trying to get well."
It consumes every aspect of the user's life, every decision they make is about the drug. Children and family members do not matter to this person as much as using the drug. Heroin comes first for these people, in my case, my sister has used opiates on and off since 2010. She's also used every other drug imaginable, starting off with pill addiction for at least 5 years before she got on heroin.
My mother was in denial. I tried telling her for years she had a serious problem. She's used crack, cocaine, painkillers, meth, alcohol, but heroin is the one she can't stay away from. My sister controls my mother's life, who is currently raising her 2 and a half year-old daughter while she is in jail for multiple counts of robbery. My mother has felt intense guilt I think, or maybe it's denial, or both.
My father was also a drug user, and has HIV/AIDS since 1994. He is still alive, currently using meth, but back in the 90s it was crack/cocaine where he ended up in prison for armed robbery. As a kid growing up with an addict parent I numbed my emotions, but never ended up a user myself. I hated my father. Absolute hate. My sister adored him, now she is just like him. I haven't spoken to him in about 6 years. My sister also has Hep C. Our entire family has been robbed and conned out of money or possessions on numerous occasions by my sister. I have so many stories. She's pawned her car, family heirlooms, put her child in danger. Drug users are professional liars. It becomes their job. There is nothing you can do to make the user stop, they have to be ready or they won't make it clean for long. I also have issues with my mother now because I didn't agree with how she handled the situation. Drug use has scarring effects on family members, the user will never understand what it does to us, nor do they ever seem to care.
That it is truly a disease that affects so many families. Many times drug abusers have underlying mental health issues. So many people are afraid to talk about it, yet so many are affected by it. The system in place now doesn't provide the best support for some people who are struggling to stay clean. Loving an addict when they are using is heartbreaking, scary, and frustrating.
That the people that use it ain't bad people, it's just the drug itself is bad. It'll grab you and never let go.
Most users start with marijuana and then move to prescription drugs. When addicted they seek cheaper street options. If you have a friend or loved one using, DON'T HIDE IT. Get it out in the open, talk to them and involve all friends and family to seek help.
That there is hope. The AMA, pharma, countless rehabs halfway houses, outpatient programs and insurance companies are stealing the right to recovery from their clients. Recovery does not have to be impossible, relapse is not necessary, one does not need to acquire a trigger list and avoid these things at all costs, drugs cannot treat drug addiction. No one has to shelter themselves from everyday life, to stay off drugs. Hope and the power of purpose is all anyone needs.
I hope America decides to look at results of alternative treatment. Rather then dumping more money and creating more beds for a solution with recovery rates in the single digits. There are great programs that are underfunded and cannot receive insurance that have 50-90 percent recovery rates. This is recovery not maintenance. It is freedom from addiction, freedom that does not require a person to avoid people places and things, one that does not need you to attend a meeting every day like your life is dependent upon it. Freedom that is offered "freely."
The chance of dying during relapse after rehabilitation from opioid dependency is the most painful experience your loved ones may have to face. Even in death we love you and wish there was a better outcome. I miss my wife every single day.
It can kill you instantly. Our friend died almost 5 years ago from an overdose. A few of his friends wondered why we hadn't heard from him in a few days. We had arranged to get together on this one evening and we kept calling, texting to no avail. We went to his home and saw his car outside, so figured he must be home. We kept knocking, then banging on his door and there was no answer. We contacted his brother, who we figured must have a spare key (as our friend lived alone) and when he finally arrived, he put the key in the lock and the deadbolt was on...that's when our fears seemed to be warranted. We had to contact the apartment rental office to try to enter his apartment and after getting the super to remove the door, his brother was the first to enter the apt.
When we heard his brother crying out, "Oh no, what did you do?", we knew that he had died. Those of us who were there that night will never forget seeing our friend humped over his coffee table in full rigor mortis with a belt and the syringe near him and the anguished call that this brother had to make to his mother. "XXXX is dead...." No one should have to ever make that call. The sad truth about this death is that no one knew that he was using...we just thought he was a pothead. He had been going through some personal trials and was justifiably depressed, but none of us knew what was going on. In fact, it seemed like his life was on the upswing...he had good things going for him. His ex-girlfriend had said that she knew that he had used heroin many years prior, but that he was very proud of the fact that he had kicked the habit. So, the other thing that everyone should know, is once an addict, always an addict.
How it can take over anyone's life. My childhood was beautiful. My life was beautiful. I was motivated, active, successful, and loved my family. My addiction stole everything from me. Recovery is possible though. In two years clean and sober I have gained so much back.
While it is a personal choice to use, it is also a way of self-medication for other issues such as stress, mental illness, and low self-esteem. Just relying on rehab or detox does nothing for those who haven't been able to make good life choices their entire lives. Some need support that lasts years, if not their entire lives.
That they never intended for this to happen to them. That they wish they never would have started. They feel pretty bad about themselves already without judgment from everyone else. They were still good, caring people. Addiction just completely overtook them. Their families are devastated. Their siblings and parents left behind are forever affected, forever touched by this disease. This becomes a family disease once it touches even one person in the family. We are not ashamed of them. Through their addiction we continued to love them and forever will.
We are survivors of one the worst wars in America. We cry everyday. We cry for those that will die today, tomorrow, next week, next month and on and on. We cry for their families, and with their families. We are losing beautiful, creative, and loving people, every 19 minutes, and over 120 people a day. It seems like no one cares, that there is no outrage. This is a silent killer, and not enough noise is being made about this modern-day scourge in America.
While I am a mother who lost her son to an opioid overdose, it does not define me, or my family. My son still matters, even though most people cannot bring themselves to even say his name, or recall his memory. I am forever missing my son, Mitchell, and he is my inspiration to wake up and live, every single day.
It hijacks the brain and we need to arrest the addiction, not the person…to help stop the progression of the disease without stigmatizing the person as bad, but suffering from mental illness that addiction brings, by chemically altering the brains structure. The brain gets hijacked and wired only to seek what it now believes it lacks to be normal. The brain stops making serotonin and dopamine on its own and craves the opiates to feel well and not get sick. An addictive brain is a diseased brain and not a moral failure on the one suffering from addiction, but by a society/government that has failed morally to protect our citizens and loved ones from the profiteers of prescription drugs who have dirty hands in this epidemic.
We lost our morality and compass when we allowed profit over human lives. Stop the prescribing of these opiates to children/adults that are not in chronic pain. The FDA needs to be held accountable for their poor judgment of allowing these powerful opiates to be prescribed and for not stopping the many deaths this epidemic has caused by heroin addiction due to big pharma.
…My son died -- the unidentified young face of addiction that stopped Times Square the morning of April 12, 2013. He relapsed and fell into the subway and was electrocuted by the third rail. It was not suicide or anything other than another beautiful son/daughter losing their battle with addiction and the heartless society that shames them.
My issues with painkillers started about 5 years ago. A condition known as 'testicular varicosele' found its way into my life. I was in college at the time, and without insurance. As a recovering alcoholic, I know that I am susceptible to addiction, and did my best to stay away from opiates. However, two unsuccessful surgeries later, and then a third to remove a malignant tumor from my kidney (and most of my kidney with it) and I finally broke. I couldn't take it anymore. I had been living my life like someone was hammering on my testicles for 2 years at this point. I found a doctor that took mercy on me, and I have been on a slowly rising dose of narcotics ever since.
I'm stuck. I have to take the pills or I get sick. Painkillers have helped give me some quality of life back, while simultaneously sacrificing other parts of my life. It is a terrible burden. My wife doesn't realize the extent of the grip these things have on me. I don't know how to even begin working away from opiates at this point. I have been very diligent in trying to keep my tolerance down, but my dose slowly rises over the years, and now I take between 200 and 300 milligrams of opiates every day. I am back at work after the kidney surgery, but how long can I do this? How long can I just take this dangerous medicine til it catches up with me? But what else to do? How many times do I let them cut me?
I am not homeless. I am college educated and employed. I have a family. I'm not out robbing people to get my fix. So I'm not your stereotypical junkie living in a van under the bridge. But could that be my future? Who knows? I've never tried heroin, but had I not found a sympathetic doctor, who knows? I suspect my story is not unique.
Opiate detox isn't the nightmare that it's portrayed on TV/movies to be. Detoxing from opiates includes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, aches and pains, and the sniffles. Symptoms decrease over time up to 10 days, with the worst being the first 4 days. It does not include "DT's" or the severity we see with alcohol or benzodiazepine withdrawal that does include the medical emergency of "DT's." It is more like a case of flu. This is not to say they aren't miserable throughout detox, they are. What is more concerning is the addict's behavior. Giving them methadone or Suboxone is only a temporary fix. We are substituting one drug with another. Methadone and Suboxone can be used in a needle and it too is abused by those addicted to opiates. I've seen it too many times. It's a lie that these treatment drugs "help" addicts. They do not. Detox off of methadone is a nasty long detox process that's even worse than the other mainstream opiates.
The opiate addict needs long-term addiction treatment and counseling to address addict behaviors -- lying, manipulating, hurting others, criminal behavior to achieve getting their drug. They need counseling to repair themselves and start building bridges back to their family and community. Many have had their children taken away and family members don't want anything to do with them further isolating the addict and increasing their likelihood of relapse. Rehabs need to be at least 90 days, not a 5-day detox program which is a joke. 30 days is barely enough to get them well enough to think clear. 90-day minimums should be required for the standard rehab program and continued counseling up to 2-3 years afterwards. If we don't invest heavily into real treatment options then we aren't talking about real solutions.
The stigma needs to be removed. It can happen to any family, regardless of social status. These aren't junkies in the street... these are your neighbors, the quarterback, our own children. Opioid addiction has been classified as a brain disease and the rate of relapse is extremely high.
That it KILLS!! I've lost BOTH MY BOYS to heroin overdoses. My 19-year-old Dillan in 2010, and my 28-year-old Matthew just two weeks ago, February 3, 2016!!! THIS KILLS!!!! DEALERS ARE CUTTING DRUGS WITH ALL SORTS OF CHEMICALS...DO NOT USE!!!!
It doesn't always begin with a conscious choice to become a junkie, and it certain isn't just a poor, under-privileged minority problem. I was raised in a white, middle- to upper- class suburb and am well-educated with a masters degree and my opiate addiction began with prescriptions from my doctor who one day decided to stop writing the prescriptions without any instruction or attempts to wean me off even though I had been taking opiates for years. Physically dependent, I had no choice but to either be sick or self-medicate.
Already in pain from the fibromyalgia and arthritis that had been the reason I was taking the pills to begin with, I was not going to suffer through a withdrawal so bad that I thought I was dying as well. So I bought pills on the streets. When it got too expensive to keep buying pills and with supplies not always being consistent, I turned to heroin. I am a perfect example of how addiction does not discriminate.
That initially you made a choice to try it, but after that it becomes a disease. So many people need to really educate themselves on addiction. As a family member I have seen close family members and friends try it once and go down that dark path after. Once you're addicted you're hooked. Do you think addicts want to live on the street? Panhandle? Shoplift? Not have their family and friends' support? Feel less than? Not be able to get help through funding, etc.? I don't think so. I myself have never used drugs, however, I know it's a disease. I've lived through it with my family/friends, once we stop the stigma and really try and understand and educate ourselves then we can help the matter and not cause more harm. Why not be apart of the solution and not the problem?
It is taking bright, educated and promising young people and utterly destroying their lives, families, their futures and their dreams. My little sister was in college, on the golf team and getting straight As. Now she has been to prison, convicted of felonies, lost everything in her life including her relationships with us, her family and is living on the streets.
We feel so helpless and unable to reach her. We have tried and tried to help her "restart" only to fail every single time. She blames us for her failed attempts. She falls deeper and deeper in a pit that we can't reach into. It happened so fast and nothing seems to work. It is very heartbreaking and infuriating that someone you love is trapped in this hell that you cannot rescue them from. You just want to run in and scoop them up and whisk them away from their bad choices and unsafe lifestyle, but every time they run back.
For opioids, the entry is to manage real pain. For me, a near fatal bicycle wreck broke my back and every bone in my skull. Thus, real pain results from real trauma. Enter painkillers. Enter dependence to not only chase away the pain, but to invite the velvet, where for a moment, there is no more fear, no more anger at the injury, only the velvet lie of a fleeting potion that over time, steals more than it heals.
And then you are back to the beginning, what to do about the pain?
I wish people understood how much I wanted to stop, how much I hated what my life had become. I think people assume that there is a lot more choice involved than there is. But I don't think anyone really chooses to become a heroin addict. I chose to start getting high initially but something changed in me where pot and alcohol weren't enough and I compulsively sought better ways to get high. By the time heroin came into the picture it was too late, I was already gone. Heroin does not sound like a good idea to a rational human being and some people can use other recreational or prescribed drugs and remain rational. Those of us who become junkies are people who are rendered incapable of making good decisions when mind-altering substances are introduced to our bloodstream. You might call it a slippery slope, the regression from casual partying to heroin but it's really a very slow process of accepting different levels of normality.
The first time I knew of one of my friends shooting up I was disgusted, but it gradually became less foreign and one day just didn't seem like a bad idea anymore. After that point it is a quick downhill to rock bottom. The first time I shot up I had just turned 18 and that afternoon I was leaving the country to visit my parents for a month. I dreamt of heroin every night I was gone, And while I knew it was a bad idea, I knew as soon as I got back to the States I was going to do it again, just one more time. I spent the next three years waking up every day with the intention of getting clean but a few hours into the day I'd think, just one more time, then tomorrow I will do things differently.
It's hard to explain to anyone who's never been through it and I can see how it would be hard to understand because it doesn't make sense, but there was no choice. Even now, I have to keep reminding myself because it doesn't make sense to me anymore either. I have been clean for six years and am married. I, no joke, drive a minivan, have three small children and a nice house with a pool. Most people don't know and would never assume that I spent any time living in a tent behind a supermarket using dirty needles and rainwater to inject heroin into my neck. So that's the other thing I wish people knew, and really believed, is that we change. We Hate ourselves as much as society hates us but we don't have to stay that way forever, we can change into amazing beings.
That it can take one time; that not everyone gets 10 chances at rehab. That the reckless and glamorous life of your favorite band will not necessarily be your outcome. That you can overdose and die by snorting; needles are not required.
I provide education and support for families, referral for treatment for addiction and co-dependency. It requires sustained long-term intervention and support, and Suboxone is another big-pharmacy drug that is now so widely available, abused, sold on the street and prescribed by doctors to a heroin addict in an outpatient setting without requiring or making available any well studied evidenced-based practices.
If you have someone you love living under your roof actively using opiates at the very least you should look into obtaining Narcan (Naloxone) and some training on how/when to use it. After you speak with one parent who could not revive their overdosed child, well, this is the sort of advice that sobers up the family -- get them help, or prepare for the funeral. There are no old heroin addicts, unless of course you are old when you start.
Overdose deaths are now in pandemic range, thousands and thousands of beautiful people are dying because of addiction, starting for the most part on prescription drugs that in the 90's were marketed to MD's as a treatment for non-acute pain. The pain scale was developed, and big pharma took a serious drug that had only been used for dying cancer patients or post surgical patients, and they sold it to the medical profession as a great treatment for non-acute pain. Molar teeth removal, broken or fractured bones, etc. The big problem is that big pharma "forgot" to tell MD's about the potential side effects such as addiction and/or death. Healthcare in the US became a pill-oriented answer to all ailments. Too many patients, too little time, $ lost if they could not get a quick turnaround. Television advertisements of drugs in this country push patients to demand a pill answer… This activity has made katrillionaires of big pharma players.
When the pill crackdown happened 5-6 years ago, the collateral damage of much more difficulty getting them, kids turned to heroin because it was easily obtained, since the cartels are more than happy to enlarge their market. $5 for a hit of heroin could be delivered to your door in 5 minutes, ANYWHERE in the US. I lost my beautiful 30-year-old son from an accidental OD. I put his cause of death in [his] obituary. My anger and grief drove me to advocacy. I started the Delaware Chapter of GRASP (Grief Recovery after a Substance Passing), which saved my life so that I could help other parents. Three other couples from Delaware who lost beautiful children also got involved. One of those families started an non-profit for their son Tyler called atTAcKaddiction and in the first year of its existence, and my GRASP group we were able to get a Good Samaritan 911 Law passed. That law is called the "Kristen L Jackson & John M Perkins, Jr. Law". His father, sister and I are very proud that long after we are all dead and gone he will still be saving lives.
That its impossible to get better without support. I wouldn't be here if my family had not stuck by me.
If I had the same experiences of trauma, hurt, pain, emptiness, neglect, hunger and poverty that people who live with addiction had -- I hope that I could cope half as well as they do. I hope I would have the same strength and resiliency that they do. But I can't say for sure that I would. Despite what life has given people who live with addiction, they have prevailed to the best of their abilities. If YOU were to have the same life experiences as people who live with addiction -- I hope that you would have the strength to prevail too.
I don't know why I keep doing it, or why I keep going back. I hate being on methadone but I don't rob, cheat, and steal... so why am I still a problem. I just feel like I can't win.
How hard it is to get off and stay clean because your own body and mind are at war with themselves.
That there is so much more to life than the life a drug addict lives. I think they don't always see that. That even family members can cause you life-erupting pain, and how important it is to face them with compassion (although it is okay to be angry too). That I have lost half of my friends and my sister to heroin addiction and that AA and Al-Anon works if you work the program.
That even though I live half way across the world now, and have no control over what is happening at home, I still feel the pain everywhere in my body when I think about my sister and all my friends whom I haven't spoken with in months. When I think of Seattle where I have lived the first 19 years of my life, the thought of returning home doesn't appeal anymore. When I think of home, I see a dark cloud of anger and pain and people I miss dearly, the constant dark clouds over Seattle have become so much worse than only the stereotypical weather. When I picture Seattle now I picture Pan's Labyrinth, a dark and twisted place that I have no desire to re-enter anytime soon.
It is difficult to watch for 15 years, a family member struggle and TRY to overcome it. They are now on methadone. Plus it is self-sacrificing and expensive to try to keep the family member fed, sheltered and from committing crimes.
That it is a disease that my son has! He has died once and has stopped breathing at least 10 times in my home and continues to use heroin! Either me (his mom) or his dad or brother have performed CPR until paramedics came, [and] he continued to use after that. We are traumatized, our family is not the same, never will be! Five treatment centers later and he lives thousands of miles away but he still fights this demon!
I wish people understood that it's not as simple as "just stop!" Addiction to pain medication happened quickly for me and I was so ashamed to admit it. I wish drug addiction was not such a stigma. Being addicted to alcohol is the same thing, yet alcoholism seems much more "socially acceptable" if that makes sense?
It's not something you want to happen to you. I had a great life, goals, asspirations, but once I tried heroin I became a slave to getting high.
That it's a public/mental health disease, it's not about being a bad person or morally weak. I also want people to know that with proper long-term treatment it's possible to recover and live a beautiful life. I feel incredibly fortunate to have my recovery of almost 6 years and to have my life back.
It can and will kill you. My beautiful 25-year-old daughter who had a three-year-old daughter of her own died from just wanting to get high. She died in a public restroom in the local casino. Now I'm raising my beautiful granddaughter and trying to comfort her when she doesn't understand why mama isn't coming home.
My boyfriend died of a heroin overdose on October 30, 2015. I wish they knew that doctors are creating addictions by prescribing irresponsibly high doses of opioids for extreme periods of time to patients with chronic pain who have nowhere else to turn. That the profile of an addict is much broader than most people perceive and can often be that seemingly functioning, well-respected professional you know and work with. That the jump from prescribed opiates to heroin isn't as far as you think. That addiction is a disease with emotional and physical aspects and not something most people can overcome through sheer willpower. That the disease lies. That getting someone into treatment can't necessarily save them and relapse is almost certain. That no matter how much an addict loves you, they love the drug more. And that even though your brain knows you can't save an addict and that what happens to them as a result of their addiction isn't your fault, it takes a very long time for your heart to know that.
It effects everyone, everywhere
The getting "high" part goes away pretty quickly, giving way to just getting relief. BOTH feelings are strong, but once you are in the spider web, relief is the best one can hope for...
That, at least in my personal experience as a legitimate chronic pain patient, opioid dependence is significantly different from addiction in that I have never, in 20+ years, needed to increase my dosage, once we'd reached a therapeutic dosage. The current focus on addiction and abuse has been hugely harmful to the legitimate chronic pain patient. Due to the over swing of the control pendulum, we have been deprived of our medications, lost our doctors and been treated like criminals.
This has caused not only physical harm but psychological as well. Just look at the surge in suicides by despondent pain patients. I suggest that a portion of the rise in heroin usage comes from desperate pain patients who cannot acquire their legal prescriptions and that many of the overdoses are pain patients either unfamiliar with heroin or deliberately OD'ing. I can't prove these statements but they are my experience and the experience of many pain patients nationwide.
It is a disease and it is very hard as a parent to not want to help your addicted child but typically the help turns into enabling. This disease now impacts all socio-economic levels. We were an upper middle-class family with an addicted daughter.
It's not a choice. After you take that first one and you get addicted it takes everything from you. You're just a shell of a person.
It makes you do things you never would have done before. My son stole family heirloom jewelry given to me by my parents, brought here from Italy, irreplaceable. It broke my heart to tell my mother what my middle son did. I died a little inside telling her it was forever gone. Once a good looking and decent man, he turned to drug use and then finally heroin use and abuse.
He flat lined in the E.R. 4 times in one night, [had] permanent brain damage and [is] now serving time in Kingman prison for theft as well as sex with a minor (16) while on heroin! He has had all of his teeth pulled now at the age of 27, ruined his looks and his mind. While he no longer has the chance for a normal life, I hope that many will listen and make some huge changes while there is still time! Parents, I quit enabling him for 2 years, only back in his life once he was ready and clean and prepared to serve his jail time and do the best he can to move on to the next sober level!
That you can overcome the addiction.
That it isn't a choice, and it isn't fun. By the time you are fully addicted, you are a slave to the chemicals. Addiction doesn't care about your kids. It doesn't care about your relationships. The only thing addiction knows is that it is hungry and you WILL feed it.
Addiction does not discriminate. It is not only the "junkie" you see on the corner, begging for change who is affected. I've helped treat everyone from an Ivy League graduate from a prominent, well respected family, to an elderly Southern matriarch who became addicted after being prescribed opioids for years and has never even tried marijuana.
You can become addicted to prescription opioids and not even realize you have a problem, till it's too late. In the haze of the high and loved ones saying they're worried about you, you lie to yourself and them and say you need the pills, that the doctor wouldn't give you something that would hurt you, that you need them or the pain will be unbearable. So you pull away from everyone so they don't see you high. Not realizing you are not just taking the medicine for pain -- you now need it daily to just to get out of bed. Without it, you're physically sick. Your whole body hurts, and you know the answer to fix it all is the opioids.
I stopped using, I got help and got to see there is still life left to live. My younger brother passed in December 2014 from a combined drug intoxication and heroin was one of the drugs that helped take his life along with prescription drugs. He lost his battle but I am fighting it in his name to try and help bring this front and center, and let people know there is help out there, there is life after all this. They have to want to get clean, more than they want to get high.
I wish that people understood that heroin/opioid addiction has no face. It spares no soul, and once it has you in its tight grips, you'll spend your lifetime fighting out of its hell hole. Opiate withdrawal relieves you of all morale and ethical codes you thought you once lived by, and transforms you into a hollow shell of the human spirit you were born with. This drug was beyond a shadow of a doubt the scariest most difficult drug I've ever had to quit.
I wish people could understand that being an addict doesn't make you a bad person or ignorant. It means you have made a series of poor judgments that have brought you to this illness.
For me it was about not being alive. [Being] too scared to kill myself, and heroin took all of those feelings away. It's a magical, beautiful, musical high. The dark side of heroin addiction is the act of getting the drugs: getting the money, going to the worst parts of Detroit, having the drugs cut with God knows what, etc. If they took all of those negative aspects out of it, I think people would be a lot safer.
I have no regrets. The warm loveliness of the high far outweighed the negative. I have OD'd myself, and I have lost many of my loved ones to heroin and I can't unsee what I saw. It's been 18 years since I've done heroin. I'm oddly not an addict, I've come to terms with the darkness this world we live in holds. I have a theory that a lot of addicts have tender souls, too tender for the darkness, so they seek out ways to numb it.
I'm a good person. I'm a contributing member of society. I'm educated. I have a good job, make good money, have wonderful relationships with my loved ones. I'm so completely average. The only thing that sets me apart from that other young business professional that seems to have it all is that I'm addicted to opiates. And the problem is that I tell myself everyday it's not a problem because I am able to carry my life on in a normal way...I'm not a typical addict. I don't steal, lie to borrow money, I don't manipulate people, I don't engage in promiscuous activity...since it's not ruining my life in the way of major money, legal, or relationship issues I tell myself that it's not ruining my life. I'm delusional.
Not every pain patient is an addict or addicted to their pain medication. Addiction is a "CRAVING" for a substance. Pain patients DO NOT "crave" their medicines. They take it because they have to. They're in constant pain. They are dependent on it for pain relief, nothing else. Just like any other medicine to treat blood pressure, insulin, cholesterol.
The current anti-opioid climate has had a negative impact on me as a legitimate, responsible pain patient, in that it has made it difficult to find any doctor who will prescribe the medications, made it difficult to find any pharmacy to fill it if I DO get a prescription, and made it difficult to even have it covered as my insurance will no longer cover my pain medications. I have been tried, and sentenced, and am now being punished for the misuse and abuse of others (and lumped in with heroin users to boot) and have committed no crime. I bear the stigma and discrimination as a 'drug seeker' and 'drug offender.' Even though all I want is pain relief.
That after the first hit enough will never be enough! My son died from heroin.
I wish people knew that heroin addiction does not discriminate. I wish people knew that those suffering from addiction are not bad people, but someone with a disease. I wish there was less stigma surrounding heroin addiction so that more people suffering would feel comfortable seeking the help they so desperately need and deserve.
We don't choose to be this way.. we don't want to be addicts.
The medical community in the US holds a great deal of culpability in the spread of opioid addiction. Irresponsibly prescribing heavy-duty painkillers to people over the last 20 years has caused a huge surge in the numbers of addicted. When the industry became aware the damage they had inflicted, they made it more difficult for people to obtain pain medications; many have switched to heroin.
I have seen so many in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous lose their sobriety, their lives and their dignity to pill addictions. Time and again, I hear sad stories of trust placed in doctors, and the beginning of a pill addiction. Please hold the medical community responsible --- our love of prescriptions and our trust of doctors has helped create this new nightmare in people's lives.
It's a horrifying addiction that destroys the lives of not only the user, but their family members. Watching its effect on my son for the last 7 plus years has drained me emotionally and financially. Heroin and opioid addiction has no bias. I've seen people from all walks of life fall victim to this monster — people who were straight up users and people who started out managing legitimate pain, only to graduate to heroin use. So many people dead. My own son has nearly died more times than I can count due to secondary issues (endocarditis, staph infections, etc.) all brought on by infections from the syringe use. He has had to have multiple surgeries to his heart. One time he was found unresponsive in the hospital.
One of the most painful things to watch is to see how other people treat addicts: as less than human. My heart and prayers go out to the families and loved ones. This is someone's son. A daughter. A father. A brother. A mother. No words can describe the despair of watching a bright and articulate son succumb to the drive to use again. How does one explain the feelings of being isolated and powerless to help? How can WE, in the Unites States, continue to prescribe opioids, make them so readily available, and not make it easier for addicts to get the help they need? It's a vicious and evil circle. I wouldn't wish this hell on anyone. I refuse to give up on my son, though. If it weren't for my faith in God, I'd have jumped off a cliff a long time ago...
You can not help anyone who does not WANT to get better, and you can not take everything personally an addict says or does while in active addiction. The drug will come first until they make a conscious decision to get help.
I was a Registered Nurse. I never imagined that I could become addicted to opiates...lose everything I owned. I wound up homeless, on public assistance. Lost my license to practice, was chronically in trouble, in court, arrested. My life went from comfortably upper-middle class to indigent in less than six months. I used to be judgmental. I used to say, "I would never do that!" I would have the public know…Don't judge. Never see yourself as someone who "would never." I started with prescribed Vicodin. I've been sober now seven years. Every day, I'm grateful for life itself. My mother died of overdose on October 12, 2007. I've seen hundreds die before their time. We have to help each other.
I wish people understood that addicts do not wish to be addicts and that they wouldn't wish this disease on anyone, not even their worst enemy! People think that it is as easy as just not picking up for the first time but it truly isn't! That's why I'm glad that this epidemic is at the very least, educating people about the dangers of drugs and allowing people to simply ask for help before the problem becomes so great or leads to death!
It breaks down every aspect of your physical and mental health. You do things you know are wrong, and slowly even that fades. Just stop. Before it's too late.
I wish people understood that addiction is a disease and should be treated as such, that it can happen to anyone, that it is both chronic and fatal, that people with an addiction should not be shunned and separated from their loved ones, and that it is closely linked to mental illness and trauma. I would also like them to know that it can begin with a legal prescription from your doctor, or from making a choice to simply feel better, and that because there is not enough treatment available it is not as simple as wanting to get help. I wish people knew how difficult it is for an uninformed parent to learn about addiction and to learn what to do about it. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts.
It is not something you just quit. It is a painful everyday battle, whether you are using or not. I have been fighting for 18 years. I have been to the needle and back and am currently on a Suboxone program. I really wish "maintenance" programs were not looked down upon as they are. It has saved mine and many others' lives, but yet it seems to have a bad reputation.
A search for emotional pain relief is easily as powerful a driver as physical pain in addictions. Also -- we as a society do not tell the truth about addiction's cost to the individual, their society and family. Look at people who see Elvis or Michael Jackson as heroes -- these men were desperately addicted and should be lifted up as teaching examples of the terrible price of addiction. We must confront these "icons" and say the truth, especially to our teens. I've been visiting in prisons and jails and juvenile facilities for 16 years. I also worked as a chaplain with recovering addicts at a VA hospital.
Who it really affects. And how hard it is to get off of it without using worse drugs like methadone. The consequences last longer than the use. I'm over 3 years clean. My wife just got off of methadone but was stuck on it for over 2 years without a way to get off.
You must be vigilant at all times against relapse and you must surround yourself with different places and people. Being in recovery is hard. It's almost impossible if you stay in your neighborhood and are friends with the same people. You basically have to dump your life and start over.
That is a disease just like diabetes or heart disease. It is not a moral failing.
I never woke up one day and decided that I wanted to become a drug addict.
I was in college and working full-time when I stepped on an earring in my apartment. The earring pierced my left heel, and days later an abscess formed. With fevers above 102.5 F for several days, I went to the ER for treatment.
I got IV antibiotics and hydrocodone. The infection cleared, and the pain ceased. I took the extra hydrocodone anyways. It made me feel happy, and dulled the stress of work and school. I started buying OxyContin from someone with a prescription.
Once the makers of OxyContin revealed the abuse-proof formula, the doctor started to prescribe morphine (much cheaper). So, I bought morphine. First, I thought it was okay as long as I only used on my days off. I graduated college so things weren’t too bad…right? Pretty soon I told myself I was okay as long as I only used after work. Then it was okay as long as I only used on my break.
My addiction progressed to using all day everyday. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t support my habit anymore and lived with a constant struggle of trying to find more. Then, I found out I was pregnant. He saved my life.
I finally got help. I have a 6-month-old son, a loving fiancé, a supportive family. I have 14 months in recovery. I am not a junkie. I am someone’s daughter, mother, sister, and friend. For me, it started with a snap decision to take a pill just for fun. That decision nearly destroyed me.
I wish people could take a walk in my shoes, because (before receiving treatment) I loved the feeling I got from opioids, but when dependent, I hated the fact that I couldn't stop it. I stole massive amounts of prescription grade opioid analgesics from a friend's father who was a physician. For some reason he had massive amounts of these drugs in his home in pharmacy stock bottles. People need to understand that we are affected by a horrible disease. We hate the disruption and pain it causes with friends, family, and peers. We are also very functional. I began using when I was 15 and I got good grades in high school while on these drugs. By 16, I had a dependence, and when I could not access the drugs at times, I would have to endure withdrawal syndrome. It was the acute phase that lasted about a week, but then afterwards there is a long period of anhedonia.
I have an anxiety disorder along with depression and ADHD. I would say that most opioid abusers have an underlying mental disorder. I finished high school, and went off to university and I was out of options until I found that Oxycodone was in a new formulation that was nearly impossible to abuse. So I switched to heroin, and I also used a needle exchange program and clean syringes. This was in the spring of 2011. I was an isolated user, and I worked hard on my studies and did well. Finally everything came tumbling down while on summer holiday. I decided to go onto Suboxone (buprenorphine naloxone medicine) therapy. I did inpatient, and then did an intensive outpatient program at the hospital system in my area. I saw a private practice physician within my insurance consortium to obtain access to the buprenorphine therapy. I think this drug is much better than methadone, and it is outpatient. I was 19 at the time and I really needed help. I have no desire to consume opioids, and I also see a psychiatrist for my underlying mental health issues.
I am 24 now, and I am working and after transferring universities and finding out what I wanted to do. I study mathematics and business (accountancy). I think if the buprenorphine prescribing limits were removed and all physicians had prescribing powers for the purpose of opioid abuse, things would get much better, and had access to universal health care. I wish people knew what it was like to simultaneously love the rush and euphoria of the drug, yet hate how one needs that rush to function properly. I think that the public at large needs to understand that opioid abuse is prevalent nearly everywhere.
I am lucky to be on a medicine that stabilizes me and makes me not desire to chase that rush. 12 step programs made my use worse, and I instead used smart recovery. It is so hard to describe the horrors of being hooked on this terrible drug. There are legitimate pain patients that need it, but some gets diverted. I feel stable on buprenorphine, and this medical option is a tool that works. I am glad I am on it, and I wish those hooked on opioids for the wrong reasons had access to the drug buprenorphine. My heart aches for those that are chasing the high and want to clean up. The war on drugs needs to treat users as a public health issue. Not as a criminal justice issue. Period. Harm reduction works and helps. Access to treatment that I have is necessary for those addicted.
I am a person in long-term recovery -- 27 years. I am also a mother whose son battled an opiate addiction for 16 years. After 9 good months of sobriety, my son relapsed and died on Nov 24, 2015. This plague transcends all barriers. It is a disease that is steadily killing our communities. The only way to battle this is together --educate and prevent. Erase the stigma.
Opiates don't discriminate. They seemingly exist for one reason: to flood you with so many intense, good feelings that you forget everything bad. This effect will happen regardless of therapeutic or recreational intent. For those who already struggle with emotional and mental health issues, sobriety becomes exponentially more of a daunting task. It feels less like an empowered decision and more like waking up to your best friend's funeral every day. Being addicted to oxycodone or fentanyl, you will crave heroin without ever having tried it.
Even people who are shamelessly panhandling and ARE truly just after cash for dope really aren't shameless. They have a story, too. One guy told me his story of standing by the highway exit asking for money when someone callously shouted, "Get a job!" He was telling me, "I am looking for a job every day. I go down to the temp agencies, I fill out applications. It's hard." He wasn't proud of his addiction -- at the same time he had trouble stopping or we wouldn't have been helping him at our detox center. I think deep down, individuals struggling under addiction really do not want to be where they are. No one wants to stay there in poverty, neither in pain nor fleeting numbness. People want to have a happy life. Shaming someone by suggesting to "find employment" is no solution and isn't meant to be by the speaker. If you're the one saying it, it's just your way of inflating your own ego and voicing your disapproval of a total stranger whose story you don't care to know.
“I don’t think anyone can understand heroin unless they live a week in a seasoned heroin addict’s body.”
…This problem is in every socio-economic group. That it could be your child or family member. That finding affordable long-term residential treatment is difficult at best. It’s hard to find a 30-day program that is affordable and fully covered by insurance. Even if found there may be a waiting list, and 30 days is rarely long enough to change an attitude and craving towards heroin.
Along with getting clean, many addicts need to learn vital life skills to become a clean and self-sustaining productive member of society. People who are addicts are someone’s family member who is loved and lost. I wish someone could compile a list of rehab facilities nationwide that were affordable state-funded or nationally-funded. Most families can’t afford treatment.
This opioid addiction is terrifying to an outsider looking in, but as a user it seems natural and normal. People don't wish to be this… it seems to just happen. No one grows up saying, "When I grow up I want to be a drug addict." I've been on both sides of the fence. I'm a person in long term recovery. …It means I haven't had a drink or drug since February 23, 2014.
I was that hopeless broken girl, the girl with no purpose, no goals, no values. I felt as though I didn't matter, I didn't have a voice, and I would just die a "junkie." I hated myself and thought "people would be better without me." I had goals and dreams, I had a great family and friends, I had the world at my hands and I traded it first for a pill that later turned into a needle. The needle took me to a whole new world of addiction. It took my morals and values away. It took my family and friends; it took my education, my purpose. Lastly, it took me.
Heroin changed me into this "other" person. When looking in the mirror I didn't recognize my reflection, I no longer was the girl I knew. …At the end my family was done, they couldn't take it any longer. I got an ultimatum get sober or get out. I always thought they hated me but I was wrong. I decided I couldn't live as an active user any longer. I've changed my life around. I work in the field of addiction and I'm a student... taking classes for my drug and alcohol license. I work in a recovery home for women. I see how powerful this disease really is from a different perspective and it's scary. I had so many great accomplishments in a short amount of time. I've rebuilt important relationships that I broke. I worked really hard to get to this point in my life.
The best part of my job is seeing that broken lost girl find her voice and purpose in life just as I did. Seeing the light come back into a girl's face and seeing her shine. I think because there are so many unsuccessful and sad stories out there we miss the successful stories. The stories with hope attached to them. The stories where mothers and children are being reunited, the stories where women are standing on their own two feet and working towards goals and achieving them, the stories where that broke lost girl finds her way and makes it. These are the stories of hope, if you look hard enough they're on every corner... Advice? Never lose hope in a person with substance abuse disorder.
It's not about a moral issue. It's a chronic illness that can be managed with treatment.
Federal legislation does not allow Nurse Practitioners to prescribe buprenorphine as a treatment for opioid addiction -- even though we provide all other primary care services for our patients who often also suffer from addiction. Buprenorphine can only be prescribed by physicians and not all physicians choose to offer this safe, life-saving treatment. We have a huge demand for treatment, and a shortage of providers to offer this treatment. Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants could offer this life-saving prescription if there were changes made to this federal policy.
When a person is heavily engrossed in the cycle of addiction the notion that most loved ones seem to not be able to comprehend is that of -- "why can't you just stop." This is not a rational thought for an addict. There, within this vicious cycle of lies, pain and remorse that encompasses and takes over a person's thought process one axiom is ever present; that is the complete lack of the ability to say "no."
I know it is hard to comprehend but just imagine waking up in the morning and your first thought being of heroin. The ways and means of how you will get this one thing into your body to make life worth living. Now imagine the person doing these things despite any and all responsibilities that they may have. Children will take a back seat. Basic morality never comes into play when it comes to the end goal of putting this substance into your body. That is what it does to you mentally -- it is an ever present thought. Physically, imagine the worst flu-like sickness you have ever had then factor it by ten. So you have a mentally and physically tortured person who knows that if they obtain this one thing "all will be well." Would you have a choice? It's as if a tortured prisoner were offered the key to their cell door, they are going to take it, there would be no choice. This is the short, short example I have of the cycle. Something drastic has to happen to break it. For some, a stint in rehab works. Others may just experience enough pain and be ready.
But like anything addiction is progressive, I used heroin for over six years, things were bad, very bad, I felt I had no way out. It was either continue using to numb the pain or kill myself. Eventually I was arrested and spent a few months in jail, after my physical symptoms were gone I was able to reflect on my life and at that point I had a choice. Continue to use and die or go to prison, or to do something with my life for a change. I was given Drug Court and the structure of this intensive probation has worked for me. Today, I have not used. Tomorrow morning, I am going to get up, iron some cloths, put on my tie and go to work. This was an impossible task when I was using. But tomorrow I have a choice. I see so many news reports on the heroin epidemic that is widespread and all the fear it must put into every parent. But I see almost nothing about the stories of the people who have battled this thing and won. There is so much hope out there and it was the knowledge that someone else got out of the living hell I was in gave me the motivation to do it too. If you are reading this as someone who is in that cycle right now seemingly without HOPE, know that there is a way out.
Because heroin is so addictive, I will live in fear for the rest of my life of my daughter overdosing and dying. In 2014, she overdosed twice within a two and a half month period of time. I found her the first time and thought that she was so scared of almost dying that she would never touch it again.
This addiction affects the entire family. I have been caring for her son ever since she had the second overdose. He was not quite nine months of age when she overdosed the second time and went to jail. Finding treatment is very difficult. The only way that we were able to get her into treatment was to foot the bill ourselves.
I've had 3 back surgeries and began my use with oxycodone which eventually turned into heroin after my script was taken for a bulls*** reason. I do have nerve damage and I've been disabled since I was 28 in 2013. 90% of my effort goes to getting well and ending any withdrawals I currently am suffering through. I refuse to steal or pawn anything so I stay sick often. I rarely ever use enough of any opiate to feel "high". These days I use it to get well.
That the addict truly has no control and they hate their life
Watch out if your child is prescribed pain medication at an early age. My son hurt his back playing football in his senior year of high school. He was prescribed pain medication. When the medication ran out, he started buying pills on the street. Then that became too expensive so he started using heroin. He passed away November 23, 2015 of a drug overdose. I miss him every day. He didn't realize what opioids were or how addictive they can be.
We need to get the word out to these kids. I would like to help in any way I can. This can happen to anyone. He was a good boy with good grades. He would have done anything for anyone. He always had a smile on his face. He was loved by everyone… family... friends... teachers... coaches. He always wanted to help out his friends so if there is anything I can do to help please let me know. This is what Peter would want.
I struggled with opium addiction for years bc of an abusive childhood and feeling unloved. Being a musician brought easy access to beautiful people who had substances that made the past hurt less. When I became involved in Anonymous, doing peer support for jailed hacktivists, the stress was unbelievable. Even as the founder of Free Matt DeHart and as an activist for Free Barrett Brown, I was still struggling to stay clean. It was only after Matt (who is my biological cousin) won the Courage Foundation Award, that I had time to look at my life and realize my potential to create real change in a suffering world was being stifled by heroin. I went to rehab and have been heroin free since October 2014. I am in school and plan on going to law school and continuing my activism in surveillance, defense, and intelligence reform.
I watched my son battle a heroin addiction that ultimately took his life 48 hours out of rehab. The heroin he bought was laced with fentanyl. What addicts and families need to be aware of is fentanyl is being added to heroin and killing young people daily. Fentanyl, a synthetic opiate is 50-100 times more potent than morphine.
Unfortunately for many who have overdosed on the heroin/fentanyl combination Narcan was not successful in reviving them. My son was given 3 doses of Naloxone and it was too late. Every time an addict injects,snorts or smokes what they think is just heroin could be laced with fentanyl. It's like playing Russian Roulette. God Bless all those struggling in active addiction and the families that love them.
Addiction is a disease and should be treated as one without stigma, and without cost prohibitive treatments.
I am a mom of a recovering addict! My son became addicted at a very young age without me even realizing through prescription drugs. As a young child he would always get codeine prescribed for his colds, than when he was 14 he had all his wisdom teeth pulled and was given Percocet. Marijuana was also an issue as well. Then, when he turned 21 and was of legal age to drink he thought he did not have a problem with alcohol, but the alcohol like any drug led him back to his cheapest high -- the heroin. I wish [people] to understand that it is like any addiction such as alcohol it may have been a choice in the beginning, but it than becomes an allergy!...
It is not easy to quit and many have no support system because they have burned all their bridges. If family and friends could understand it as a disease and be more compassionate and loving regardless if they seem to be un-loveable. They may have done a lot of awful things, but still are a human being and deserve to be treated with dignity. I wish society to understand that legalizing marijuana is ludicrous it is a gateway drug and if you ask anyone with an addiction they will probably tell you it started with marijuana and alcohol or prescription. We need to make rehabilitation and more programs that last longer than a few days available to all. It takes a minimum of 30 days to help them get a good start.
I wish people understood what opoids/heroin do to your brain and your thought process.
The pain of withdrawal, and the mental struggles, including cravings. The amount of time and money addiction consumes. How getting money and selling your body is the only way to get well.... [and] the fear of getting sick.
The addict doesn't want to be an addict. It's easier to chase the demon (heroin) than get the help to recover. Most addicts don't have insurance for treatment or family that has money to pay for it. I'm proof that without treatment the addiction has two paths, jail or death. My son died on November 22, 2014 from an overdose and his twin is in jail for drug possession charges.
I wish people understood this could happen to anyone and would stop stereotyping it to dirty homeless junkies. I had a great childhood and grew up in a small town not in the city. My life was great. I had everything I wanted a house, beautiful wife, etc. Then, I had surgery and the doc gave me opioids for pain. That was the start. Just funneled out of control from there.
The irrationality of an addict's mental processes. Heroin use reprograms your mind so you are unable to think about much more than your next fix and the means to get it. You bypass any moral code you may have held in order to get more and keep putting off any feelings of guilt, shame or regret until you have it. Then they don't seem to matter that much anymore until it wears off. Then it's time to worry about the next fix. And the vicious cycle continues. You're not really getting high anymore, you keep needing more and more just to feel somewhat normal, to stop the pain and guilt from crashing down. The physical withdrawals are horrible but the real hell is in your mind. All that avoidance results in a well of stress and negative emotion and when the smack wears off it's like a dam bursting. You are unable to function. You can't even think coherently and that's when reality hits you. Just when you can't process it.
It becomes the most important thing to you. Nothing else matters anymore.
It is an addiction. Yes, we made the choice to use the first, second, maybe even third time but that addiction takes hold and we really do become slaves to it. It requires treatment for withdrawal and staying clean is almost impossible without help. This is a very serious problem in our culture today that needs to be taken seriously. I have many years clean, but I also suffer from a lot of mental health issues that are finally being addressed. I am being medicated and treated for those now correctly and that is my saving grace!
Heroin is a terrible drug, but opiate users are not sociopathic junkies like the stereotype says. We are human beings with a disease, and with the proper support we can recover.
It's a forever thing. The cravings, the relapses... it's forever. I've been clean for 6 years. My husband of 12 years, on the other hand, has not. He relapses all the time. He's overdosed 8 times that I have had to save his life. This last time, my kids were right there when I found him overdosed. It's traumatic for my kids and me, and he thinks it's a joke. That's how powerful this drug is. I'm scared to death everyday. I know my husband will die. It's not an 'if' anymore it's a 'when.' I've lost myself watching him like [he's] a 2-year-old.
You don't have to be "an addict" (behaviorally) in order for your body to become GROSSLY dependent on opiates (for me it was specifically OxyContin) that I was prescribed for pain associated with cancer and treatment. The dependency/addiction happens even when taking it exactly as prescribed. Your body itself becomes addicted. Eventually, the dose that used to work doesn't, so it gets increased, and so on. I never understood how people became "addicts" until my experience with Oxy. It's a horribly addicting drug that's prescribed daily that people become addicted to and it's not necessarily because they're some "freak" or drug addict piece of trash.
Opioid abuse sneaks into a person's life on kitten's paws. It does not discriminate. I was a senior manager at a huge aerospace company, making more than $130,000 a year. I was amazed how quickly getting pills became my obsession. Needing more and more, I was always terrified I would run out. Money was not the problem, finding the pills was the problem.
Anyone can become an addict. It doesn't matter how or where you were raised, race, wealth, religion etc. addiction can happen to anybody, so be kind and don't judge.
[Addiction] isn't a result of a moral failing. Also quitting isn't as easy as choosing not to use. Upon cessation of use, the sickness from withdrawal is so unbearably painful with convulsions, inability to sleep for 5-7 days, consistent puking and diarrhea that the only thing that will stop the pain is an opiate. The pain has been described by women to be more harsh than childbirth. A pain of which lasts for five days, and up to a month for those who chose treatment with methadone, exacerbating the condition.
… We do not want to be addicts. When I was a child I wanted to be a veterinarian, not a homeless addict. We are humans, we have jobs, children, hopes, and dreams. I grew up with both of my parents, in a nice house, in a good town. I never tried drugs or alcohol in high school. I was an honor student and was selected to study abroad in Brazil for a year after high school, and that is when my life changed. I was raped, and thousands of miles from anyone I knew. I felt emotions I had never felt before, and was offered a beer and accepted. My life changed forever. Alcohol made it all OK for awhile. Years later, after coming home and keeping my secret, after a four-year abusive relationship, another abusive relationship, and a daily drinking habit, I found out I was pregnant. I quit drinking, but I was miserable until after I had my beautiful daughter, and got a prescription for opiates. I was hooked after the first one, because I was able to function, I had energy, I was "OK." I was a single mother in college, and I saw nothing wrong with taking my prescription to make me "happy" and pain-free. Before long I was buying higher doses off the street, taking more everyday, and abandoned school and all of my other responsibilities, including my daughter who I eventually left at my parents' house. I then became pregnant again, and once again got clean until after she was born. Over the next two years I sold drugs, lived in terrible places, did terrible things, got in trouble, and started using heroin. The day I decided enough was enough, I was in treatment court but was still using and I had a warrant out. I was hiding under insulation while the police searched the house for me. The next day I turned myself in, went to treatment, and even though it has not been easy, I never looked back. We are not losers who should be left to die and judged. We are people in the grips of a disease who need support and compassion. I also wish people understood that recovery is possible. I am living proof, and the programs and treatment facilities are worth the money as they save lives. Incarceration is not the answer, people become addicted because they lack other coping skills to deal with stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD, anger, etc., and the drugs take away physical and emotional pain. Throwing someone in a jail cell is not going to get to the root of the problem, it will only increase those feelings and lead right back to drug use. Three years ago when I got in trouble, if I was thrown in jail instead of being able to do treatment court, I would not have a job working with recovering addicts, I would not have an apartment or car, I would not have graduated college last semester, and I certainly would not have my two beautiful children. These programs allowed me, and many others, to become productive members of society. Addiction is not a moral failing, it is a disease and the only way to stop this epidemic is for people to show compassion and understanding and stop judging and condemning addicts, because they will not come forward for help for fear of being judged and rejected. We already feel bad enough about ourselves, we don't need to hear what "scumbags" and "losers" we are. If communities come together to help build each other back up, work together on prevention, and get to the root of the problem and begin working on the solution, together we can fight this disease. I work at a peer-support recovery center and see recovery in action everyday. I also see many go back out, and I lost my best friend to heroin last year. Combating addiction has become the focus of my life, and helps me maintain my own recovery, but it takes the whole community.
Addicts are not bad people. They don't have a choice once addiction takes over their brain.
Opioid addiction can (and does) impact anyone, regardless of age, gender, status. It can start with a single prescription. Addiction is an illness, not a character flaw, and there are very effective treatment options. In just a short time providing medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, I have seen people quickly regain control over their lives once treatment is initiated, restoring relationships, succeeding at work, and finding emotional stability.
My mother struggled with chronic pain and an unrecognized, except by loved ones, addiction to narcotics. After her death, from an unrelated cause, I had avoided seeking special training in addiction, as I thought it would pose too much of an emotional challenge. However, after seeing patient after patient walk through my door with opioid disorder, often having no treatment options, I felt that getting trained in buprenorphine and offering it as a treatment option was the right thing to do, for my patients and my community.
I have struggled with opioid addiction on and off for 30 years with the most clean time being 7 years consecutive. The thing that I think that people are quickly understanding is that opiate addiction does not discriminate and is not a moral failing.
Many of us that have become addicted are intelligent, valuable people who lost control after experimentation, curiosity or having the opiates prescribed. I didn't ever intend to be a heroin addict; it quickly got out of control and led me to places I never dreamed of.
How easy it is to become addicted and how painful it is to quit.
It's an illness and doctors and big pharma are culpable. The sources of synthetic heroin need to be cut off. Treatment options are too expensive and far too scarce. Selfishness is not the reason why addicts become hooked. Many addicts (and their families) desperately try to help them(selves). That stigma only exacerbates the epidemic. That criminalization of the addict is not a solution. That doctors and big pharma are culpable (my repetition is deliberate).
There are many legitimate users of pain medication who suffer from chronic diseases. Patients are not addicts. I suffer from Fibromyalgia and MS and just making through the day is a challenge. I still work full-time but I am on intermittent FMLA since flare ups can happen at any time. I suffered for over 10 years in debilitating pain because doctors thought I was too young to be in such pain. You can not let the possibility of someone being an addict hold you back from treating those who actually need it. There is no reason any person should have to suffer in pain. I have seen the horrors of addiction with friends and my ex-husband, and it is awful, but we as a society must recognize there are millions of us who have true invisible illnesses.
These are people with a terrible disease and marginalizing them is not at all helpful.
It can totally encompass your life. It leaves you unable and unwilling to exist in the "real" world. Heroin make you do things that go against your entire moral values.
People do not choose to become addicts.
Anyone can become addicted to opioids and "graduate" to heroin when the other drugs aren't available or become expensive, as is the case. My son started using Percocets with a girlfriend who had been prescribed the pills by her doctor. Once on that road, people don't realize how easy it is to stay there and when there is an end to the prescribing of the pills, heroin is a cheap alternative....but fentanyl is widely used to cut the heroin and is a quick trip to the morgue. There is no way to come back when you have enough fentanyl in your system to kill 3 or 4 people, as was the case with my son. We never think it will happen to us. We are wrong.
Too many people don't know what they are using, what it is that they are injecting or snorting, etc. And they are dying. Over 40 years ago my own mother became dependent on pain pills, Valium and others after she had back surgery. She took those pills, prescribed by her doctor for years afterwards. It was almost impossible for her to quit taking them. She had to be weaned off and I know she went through withdrawal. However, these were "legal" drugs, so people didn't think much of that issue, then. I believe drug companies are in the business to make money, support their bottom line and they don't care who uses their drugs, as long as they do use them.
I don't know what the answers are, as to legalizing drugs but I will say nothing that is going on now is working. I've read about other countries that have legalized drugs and regulate them, that those countries seem to have a better handle on their particular protocol. Do I think the US would be better served if we adopted that protocol? It might be better than what we have now. Seems what we have now is a huge mess and lots of sick, addicted and dead people. As a parent of a child lost to addiction, I can only say there has to be a better way.
We really can't see what's obvious to you and to everyone else and to me, just not when I look in the mirror. It seems unbelievable but it's true. It really does make you blind to your own addiction and in that respect I truly believe it is a disease. Heroin addiction is a disease.
While it may have been a choice to start using opiates, nobody chooses to become an addict.
Heroin addiction is almost always a financial medical decision as the least expensive way to maintain an opiate level that keeps withdrawals at bay. After a few weeks of use, the "high" is almost always negligible to the ability to keep from becoming "dope sick."
I wish people understood that once the addict becomes addicted to heroin or opioids, it’s no longer a choice. It does and will consume every part of your life. The drive to get the next is no longer about the actual high, but more about not being sick. The drive turns into needing the drug to just feel normal. The body needs the heroin just to function.
When a heroin addict finally has the desire, desperation, or willingness to put the drug down and get help, the psychological battle will begin … the mind will literally go into panic mode for the next high. Without the right guidance and support it is almost impossible to get clean from this drug. It is a complete lifestyle change, not as simple as just don’t get high. The shame guilt and embarrassment will consume the addict without counseling or therapy.
Recovery is possible. This is not a death sentence. We do overcome the disease of addiction. I am a recovering heroin addict. I have 20 months clean from heroin and any other mind- or mood-altering substance. I now work as a recovery specialist in one of the city’s detox facilities. Also one of the four organizers of my town’s Overcoming Addiction, which holds candlelight vigils but also helps families understand addition and offers support. With that I am also a panelist with the district attorney’s opioid task force, where I can give my experience to lawmakers and city officials — a perspective on the life of an addict, and hopefully give hope to the families that have lost it. Most importantly I am a daughter again a sister, a fiance, and a friend….. no longer a hopeless junkie!
The best advice I can give to people that do not understand this disease is every person in the throes of addiction is someone’s child, mother, brother, sister, father. They were not always the drug addict you see before you. They are lost and need to be found. So before casting any judgement try encouragement. You never know what someone is battling.
Kicking the habit is very hard and painful. Then, to relearn how to live can be just as taxing. Find support wherever you can get it, as well as taking a lot of ownership for your own success and failure during recovery, and be sure to pat yourself on the back each day for successful days. Staying clean is an every day/life-long challenge but worth it.
